Harry and the Unforgivable Curses

[Voldemort]

On page 810, Harry is consumed with rage, and attempts to preform the Cruciatus Curse on Bellatrix, and is unable to. I have a few questions regarding this. First, Bella tells Harry that "you have to mean them, Potter. you need to really want to cause pain-to enjoy it-righteous anger wont hurt me for long"
Wasnt Harry angry enough, i mean that his godfather just died, so why wasnt he able to do it. maybe just because he has never done it before? and why wouldnt harry try and kill her instead of just torture? he had the chance, had he done the crucio correct she would have been in pain, so why not just kill her?
so do you think that Harry would have been in trouble with MoM if he would have correctly performed it? does performing it on a DE make it okay?
and last, do you think that Harry should/will learn how to do the UC? i think that it is necessary to learn the killing curse, so that he can defeat a DE if he needs to. obviously he will not be taught how to at school, but if i were him a would learn it on my own.
sorry for the long post, but what are your thoughts?

ETA: Great post, but I think I will move it to 'theories' as people will likely discuss book 5's events, but also speculate about future books and things that will happen, so it makes more sense to be in the theories section. Thanks for bringing up these points!

[Lizzy Bennet]

On page 810, Harry is consumed with rage, and attempts to preform the Cruciatus Curse on Bellatrix, and is unable to. I have a few questions regarding this. First, Bella tells Harry that "you have to mean them, Potter. you need to really want to cause pain-to enjoy it-righteous anger wont hurt me for long"
Wasnt Harry angry enough, i mean that his godfather just died, so why wasnt he able to do it. maybe just because he has never done it before? and why wouldnt harry try and kill her instead of just torture? he had the chance, had he done the crucio correct she would have been in pain, so why not just kill her?
so do you think that Harry would have been in trouble with MoM if he would have correctly performed it? does performing it on a DE make it okay?
and last, do you think that Harry should/will learn how to do the UC? i think that it is necessary to learn the killing curse, so that he can defeat a DE if he needs to. obviously he will not be taught how to at school, but if i were him a would learn it on my own.
sorry for the long post, but what are your thoughts?

I have lots of thoughts on this (glad you started this topic! ), but as I don't have a lot of time, I think I'll (for now) add another thought for people to ponder . . .

If you have to 'mean it' to perform an unforgivable curse and have enough hate, evil, and power in you to do it (which would explain why Harry couldn't...he had 'righteous anger', as Bellatrix said, but not true, deep-seated anger, hate, and evil), how do you explain Pettigrew performing (with Voldemort's wand) 'Avada Kedavra' on Cedric Diggory in book 4? Pettigrew wasn't supposed to be a good wizard in school (yet he did kill several people when framing Sirius), and even if he did improve somehow, how did he do AK with another wizard's wand?

By Bellatrix's definition, I didn't think Pettigrew could do it...he seems to fear Voldemort than truly worship him (like Bellatrix, for instance)...moreover, he seems to be with Voldemort out of fear and weakness. Bearing all this in mind, it makes it interesting to remember that Dumbledore reminded Harry once that having Pettigrew indebted to him (Harry) would prove valuable later on...Harry was disgusted by this, but if Pettigrew truly is powerful and truly 'owes' Harry his life from book 3, I wonder how JKR will weave that into future books...any thoughts?


~ Lizzy

[gecko]

I think Pettigrew is just so scared for losing his own life, "Wh--what was there to be gained by refusing him? You don't understand! He would have killed me, Sirius!", that he musters all his powers to perform the AK. If you're scared and under stress and stuff, you get an adrenaline rush, which makes you stronger for a moment.. maybe he had that? Also, Voldemort's wand Pettigrew used to kill Cedric was really powerful, maybe the curse can be used more easily with a powerful wand?

I think Pettigrew might one day save Harry from being hit by a spell, by throwing himself before him, or perhaps he'll save him in some other way. He'll want to make up for the things he's done to Harry and his familiy.

I wonder if anybody but Bellatrix and Harry even knows that Harry used or tried to use an unforgiveable curse? Wouldn't DD have said something about it if he knew?
Another thing, they were able to see if he performed magic at the Dursleys, so maybe they have sensors that can sense which spells are performed at the MoM too? That'd mean they do know..

[highsorcerer]

First, I suspect Dumbledore knows Harry tried it. He won't talk, and Bellatrix Lestrange won't either. Voldemort might know as well.

As far as the MoM determining whether Harry used it, well, they didn't think to try to find out. Their method of detecting unauthorized use of magic is faulty at the very least; it was unable to determine that a house-elf (Dobby) performed a hover charm in CoS. If it was based on location, that would give a false reading (and make it harder for them to detect unauthorized use of magic by a student in a wizarding family). It can't be traced automatically by wand use, otherwise the alarm bells would have gone off in GoF when the Dark Mark was fired by Harry's wand by Barty Crouch, Jr. With the presence of so many death eaters in the MoM, the only really reliable way to test would have been to perform Priori Incantium on Harry's wand.

Of course, there might be a loophole. In GoF it was said that unforgivable curses were authorized for use against the Death Eaters. So perhaps Harry is techinically guilty, but also off the hook due to a technicality.

The debt Peter owes Harry is supposed to be magic at it's deepest. I have two theories about that. First, the magic could kick in if Wormtail tried to kill Harry, and backfire on him in some manner. Second, the debt may have been transferred to Voldemort when he used Wormtail's flesh to return to his body. So perhaps Voldemort set himself up for defeat by using Peter's flesh instead of B.C. Jrs (the only Death Eaters available to him).

[Fafnul Black]

I was relieved when Harry could not perform succesfully the Cruciatus Curse, cause he would then have been tainted, you know, like going to the dark side

For fighting DE, I guess a good strong Stupefy might be enough, see the one from Dumbledore at the end of book 4. Unconscious or dead, not much fighting abilities left to the victim, uh !?

I seem to recall that only Aurors are allowed to perform the UC while fighting DE. And, to that respect, the Imperius Curse certainly looks like the more powerful / useful.

As for Pettigrew, was it really him doing the AK on Cedric ? At the begining of book 4, Voldie was able to hold his wand and kill the old man, no ?

[Violet]

Well as has already been mentioned i think that Harry did not just hate Bellatrix for the sake of hating her, it was justified. and thus the curse only works when it is done for no good reason (thus being unforgivable)
i'm not sure if it was pettigrew or voldie that killed cedric (i havent read book 4 in a while!)
I have to agree with Fafnul, i think that harry would have been tainted had he been able to perform the crucitaus curse correctly, it is much better that he couldn't do it properly!

[chiapetdiz]

yeah! i was trying to tell my mom about this the other day. i questioned it too.

i think that if harry had tried it on anybody else, that he would have gotten in trouble for it. but since it was a DE, it was fine.. and given the fact that it didn't work.... yeah

i'm not sure if it was pettigrew or voldie that killed cedric (i havent read book 4 in a while!)

i just read it, and voldemort told pettigrew to kill the extra, so pettigrew did it.

[hpfan4life]

The MoM is capable of keeping track of who uses what magic and when. This may only apply to minors, but the ministy knew that harry had used the patronus charm to get rid of dementors infront of a muggle. They knew the exact time and everything. If the MoM only keeps track of minor's magic, then they will detect that harry used a UC. I don't think the MoM keeps track of adults magic activity, because that would have been a tool they would use to track down death eaters when Voldemort was in power a long time ago. I think Harry will be in alot of trouble for using a UC because only Aurors use it. I also think that his attempting to use a UC on a DE is foreshadowing a future career as an Auror.

[Gwared]

First, I suspect Dumbledore knows Harry tried it. He won't talk, and Bellatrix Lestrange won't either. Voldemort might know as well.

As far as the MoM determining whether Harry used it, well, they didn't think to try to find out. Their method of detecting unauthorized use of magic is faulty at the very least; it was unable to determine that a house-elf (Dobby) performed a hover charm in CoS. If it was based on location, that would give a false reading (and make it harder for them to detect unauthorized use of magic by a student in a wizarding family). It can't be traced automatically by wand use, otherwise the alarm bells would have gone off in GoF when the Dark Mark was fired by Harry's wand by Barty Crouch, Jr. With the presence of so many death eaters in the MoM, the only really reliable way to test would have been to perform Priori Incantium on Harry's wand.

Of course, there might be a loophole. In GoF it was said that unforgivable curses were authorized for use against the Death Eaters. So perhaps Harry is techinically guilty, but also off the hook due to a technicality.

The debt Peter owes Harry is supposed to be magic at it's deepest. I have two theories about that. First, the magic could kick in if Wormtail tried to kill Harry, and backfire on him in some manner. Second, the debt may have been transferred to Voldemort when he used Wormtail's flesh to return to his body. So perhaps Voldemort set himself up for defeat by using Peter's flesh instead of B.C. Jrs (the only Death Eaters available to him).

Wow, this is an excellent topic I've missed...thanks to hpfan4life for bumping it.

Firstly, in GoF the MOM loved HP so maybe they had a rough underage magic detection on him and that's how Dobby framed him. Secondly the curse was still done underage even to a DE and should have been detected unless magic within the ministry isn't monitored? Even if it was justified it should have been detected Also the theory somebody put that the brains room was ministry intelligence (although we've all been discrediting this), could explain why the curse was unnoticed as the intelligence was down.

The whole Pettigrew/Harry life owing thing. A possibility (remote but), what if at some point Lilly saved Voldermort and thus why he didn't want to kill her? This could also explain the backfire scenerio!

The MoM is capable of keeping track of who uses what magic and when. This may only apply to minors, but the ministy knew that harry had used the patronus charm to get rid of dementors infront of a muggle. They knew the exact time and everything. If the MoM only keeps track of minor's magic, then they will detect that harry used a UC. I don't think the MoM keeps track of adults magic activity, because that would have been a tool they would use to track down death eaters when Voldemort was in power a long time ago. I think Harry will be in alot of trouble for using a UC because only Aurors use it. I also think that his attempting to use a UC on a DE is foreshadowing a future career as an Auror.

What if now that the MOM hates HP in OotP they have a more detailed detection mechanism on him? This giving date, time, posistion etc and it's priority flagged meaning instant owl dispatch? Thus the speedy responses?

[Ju-DedoH]

first, I would like to say that I opened a new topic about this subject, so sorry ... (just delete it if you want, Iwill ask the other queation here).

So for the question, It was about umbridge and the cruciatus curse, could she be a deatheater after all ?
anyway, I think that the fact that Harry used the UC is not to be forgotten ! and I hope it will come back in future episodes ...

[Gwared]

first, I would like to say that I opened a new topic about this subject, so sorry ... (just delete it if you want, Iwill ask the other queation here).

So for the question, It was about umbridge and the cruciatus curse, could she be a deatheater after all ?
anyway, I think that the fact that Harry used the UC is not to be forgotten ! and I hope it will come back in future episodes ...

I don't think she's a death eater as pretty much anytime it comes up as a possibility in the book it gets quashed by another character. She's just a very evil witch, prehaps like the Black family, she's supports Voldermort from the sidelines and approves of what he's trying to do.

The fact that Harry an UC will probably resurface as have any powerfull spells he's learnt eg expecto patronus but whether for good or bad reasons remains to be seen.

[bobafett_12]

I agree with what most of the people on this post are saying. Harry couldn't properly perform a Cruciatus Curse because he wasn't feeling the type of anger needed to perfrom an Unforgivable Curse. Harry was feeling the pain of someone in greiving, the rage at losing someone. If Harry had wanted to do an UC, he would have wanted Bellatrix to feel pain, and he in turn would have had to of enjoyed torturing her. He would have felt justification if he had done it correctly, not joy.

[Holly Golightly]

and he in turn would have had to of enjoyed torturing her. He would have felt justification if he had done it correctly, not joy

I like this idea alot! It's basically what I was thinking, but unable to put into words... Harry would have needed to have enjoyed, and felt justified in totruring Bellatrix to have made it work... and I dont' think that he did. Masyeb justified yes, but not enjoyed... I think that if he had actually made the crutatious curse work, he woudl ahve felt guilty for it afterwards... for stooping to the level of the DE's... exactly what Sirius was telling Harry that Crouch was doing wrong outside of Hogsmede! So go the irony in if it had worked, and he woudl ahve done somethign to justify Sirius's death, but the act woudl ahve dissapointed him... (hrmm, am I making sense to anyone but me??? )

Holly!

[Eol]

Like with all of the spells we've seen so far, you have to be aware of what you are doing and its effects. Hmm haven't explained that too well but what i'm trying to get at is that Harry was in a blind rage. He wasn't thinking clearly, he just wanted to harm Bellatrix. This could have stopped the spell working as it should have done, although it did knock her over so there was some focus of the spell. As for Pettigrew not being a good wizard, we can't know that. All we've heard previously is that he wasn't in the same league as the rest of the Marauders, who by the way were exceptionally talented. Wormtail could be an above average wizard. Let's remember that he did manage to become an animagus in the same year as the others, and this is no mean feat for a 5th year student.
I am also aware that Voldy keeps belittling Wormtail's abilities, but Voldy's the Dark Lord; the only person in his league that we know of is Dumbledore, so Wormtail could still be a very good wizard by normal standards.
I am also sure that with respect to the techinical side of performing the Unforgivable curses, any fully qualified wizard is able to perform them, they just feel morally against it. I'm going to liken this to pulling a trigger on a gun; technically anybody can do it, but most have a moral objection to it.

[Meg Boyd]

I agree with you Eol...anybody can pull a trigger of a gun, you just have to mean it...

As for Peter, he might have been just average or whatever in school but Voldie probably took him under his wing and taught him a thing or too. He probably was much like Neville, a great wizard with a horrible sense of self-esteem, in which self-fufilling prophecies rule your life, and ended up too afraid to become great, lest he should stumble...now Peter went from strong friends to stronger friends just to feel important, as Neville helped his strong friends, who in turn helped him actually become important, and that's the difference between Neville and Peter.